Friday OYSTERS

                                     Al's Most Recent

Quote of the day:

“A victory has many fathers, a defeat is an orphan.”

                     Sitting Bull, Lakota Sioux

I have a question. A 14 year old girl shows up pregnant, the circumstances are irrelevant. What is she supposed to do, if anything, according to Pro-Life advocates?

Speaking of telling others how to live, here is a very sad tale about a woman that was forced to live her life as directed by others...it killed her.

                         Cynthia Anne Parker

Cynthia Anne Parker was born in Crawford County, Illinois in 1826. When little Cynthia was seven years old, her family moved to east Texas to the headwaters of the Navasota River near present day Groesbeck, Texas. Groesbeck is a short distance SSE of Dallas and was in the very heart of Comanche country. By 1834 the extended Parker family had completed Fort Parker. When Cynthia Anne was ten years old a large party of Comanche warriors swept down on the fort and after killing 5 men, they kidnapped two women and three children. The kidnapped children were Cynthia Anne, her brother John and a cousin named James Plummer. I cannot find out what happened to John and James but Cynthia Anne spent nearly 25 years with the Comanche. Her Comanche name was Naduah (Someone found) and she married a Comanche warrior named Pohtocnocony or as the white man called him, Peta Nocona. Cynthia and Peta Nocona had two sons, Quanah (Fragrant) and Pecos (Peanuts) and one daughter named Topsannah (Prairie Flower). Cynthia’s husband, Peta Nacona, was eventually named chief of the tribe. In December of 1860 a troop of Texas Rangers, led by Captain Sullivan Ross, surrounded and captured a group of Comanche near the Pease River. Included in this group were Cynthia and her infant daughter Prairie Flower. After interviewing Cynthia many of the Rangers told Captain Ross that they thought it would be best for Cynthia to be allowed to rejoin her adopted Comanche family because she had spent so much time with them that they did not believe she could adapt to life with the whites. But Captain Ross had heard so many complaints about white children being kidnapped by that he thought it would be best for all concerned if they tried to rehabilitate her. Cynthia and Prairie Flower were sent to Camp Cooper where Cynthia was identified by an uncle named Isaac Parker. Isaac took Cynthia and Prairie Flower to his ranch near Birdville, Texas. The Texas legislature granted Cynthia a league of land which is equal to 4,428 acres and a pension of $100 per year for five years. Incidentally, most land grants given by the Mexican Government to the Anglo settlers in what later became Texas was a “labor and a league”. A labor was 177 acres that had water frontage and a league was land without water frontage. They also named her uncles Isaac and Benjamin Parker as her guardians. It did not help. Cynthia was terminally homesick and tried to escape several times. In 1862 Cynthia went to live with her brother Silas in Van Zandt County, Texas. Later Cynthia went to live with her sister Olrena. Just before the outbreak of the Civil War, the Parker family was in negotiation to send Cynthia back to live with her Comanche family in west Texas but unfortunately the war got in the way. To make things much worse, in 1864 Prairie Flower died of influenza. This was bad enough but what made Cynthia so unhappy was that she missed her sons and did not know what had happened to them. Anyway she wasted away and died in 1870 of malnutrition at the age of 44 because she refused to eat. After several movements of her body she was finally put to rest beside her son Quanah and her daughter Prairie Flower in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Her son Quanah became a legend in the history of the American Indians and I will do a biography on him in the near future. The city of Quanah, Texas was named for him and the city of Nocona is named for Cynthia’s Comanche husband.

     This Date in History   February 19

1847 Back in August of 1846 a wagon train of 86 people arrived at Fort Bridger, Wyoming from Springfield, Illinois headed for California. The unofficial leader of the wagon train was George Donner. For some reason the wagon train chose to go on the recently blazed train known as the Hastings Cutoff rather than the tried and true California Trail blazed by Jim Bridger. They believed the new trail was shorter and would save time. The trail was a bit shorter but the terrain was much rougher and cost them time instead. In October the wagon train was caught on top of the Sierra Nevadas and the snows came locking them in. It was on this date that a rescue party from California reached what was left of the survivors. We all know what happened.

     Thanks for listening  I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Thursday OYSTERS

Al's Most Recent

Quote of the day:

“When you want to know the difference between “involved” and “committed” think of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved but the pig was committed.”

Ogden Nash

Most of you can tell that I am an old codger because of my semi-belligerent attitude and salty language. I am becoming more belligerent and more salty by the day because of all the political candidates ignoring us “Senior citizens”. I hate that description...from now on I am going to use “Grey Panthers”. To quote Clint Eastwood from the Josey Wales movie...”It is time to get mean, and I mean mad dog mean.” We are being taken for granted and we have a huge voting block yet realized. Why did my social security check not get a raise this year?..in fact it went down because of the increase in Medicare and plan D payments. Did Congress get a COLA? You bet your ass they did.

Contact your Congressmen and Senators and especially the imbeciles running for President, they all have a web site, and tell them that we beginning to organize and they had better pay attention.

In South Carolina the senators are:

Lindsey Graham

Tim Scott

In my district (4) my Congressman is Rep. Trey Gowdy

Find all of them on Google and sent them a message from the Grey Panthers that we ain't going to take it anymore.

I will change or design another web site to this effort so that we can cross communicate. It will not, I repeat, it will NOT be a site to gripe and bitch, it WILL be a site to organize and join forces.

I looked at the menus of the seafood restaurants I frequent in Pensacola, Fl. I haven't been there in quite a spell but the prices have increased by about 18 to 20 percent.

I saw an ad in Wednesday's newspaper here in Greenville...a local supermarket had sardines and canned tuna on sale for 68 cents a can...perhaps I will just have to learn to like them instead...like hell I will.

This segment will appear on my blog site also. Here it is.

bigalsdailyhistory.blogspot.com    It will soon be dedicated to organizing a voting block. There is a comments section at the bottom.

Over in Monroe, NC the local police were called about an indecent exposure incident at the Poplin Place Shopping Center. The cops quietly pulled up behind a car parked in front of the Pier One shop. They found John Ionnone sitting there with his pants down around his ankles and obviously aroused. Ionnone saw the cops coming and quickly covered himself with a towel. The cops ordered him to pull up his pants and get out of the car. Instead Ionnone chose to ram the police cruiser, pulled up and did it again. By then the cops knew he was not going to comply with their orders and broke out the driver side window and assured him that a .40 caliber slug awaited him if he did not comply. The cops finally got the car stopped and Ionnone got out and surrendered. He has been charged with a variety of offensives. His defense was that those scented candles and porcelain churns in the window were so sexy. The cops were not impressed...and neither was the judge.

This Date in History February 18

1885 On this date a masterpiece of American literature “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” authored by Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, is published. Twain looked at the novel as a sequel to another blockbuster of his called The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Even though the novel is recognized as a masterpiece it proved to be very controversial even to this date. What made it controversial was that it was a story about Huck Finn helping a runaway slave named Jim escape to Ohio by drifting the Mississippi River on a raft. The novel was essentially the observations of Huck and Jim of the people they met on their adventure. Even though Twain portrayed the Caucasian people they met as being dumb, stupid and prejudicial and Jim as being brave, generous and trustworthy many people were offended by the association of a white boy and a black man. Later on the black community objected to the portrayal of Jim as being a “Jim Crow” image, or kowtowing to the whites. The book was taken from the shelves of most libraries as being “tawdry” and too controversial. Even up to 1997 this book was banned by several American communities as being a possible cause of racial unrest. I don’t get it. All one has to do is read the liner notes and if they don’t like what they read then put the damned book back on the shelf and pick another, but don’t prevent others from reading it. Who the hell do they think they are? They ban Tom Sawyer but allow Lady Chatterley's Lover. They are behaving like Nazis...nothing less. Don’t get me started on censorship.

1776   On this date James Murray, the 4^th Earl of Dunmore and the Royal Governor of Virginia, sent a note to William Legge, the 2^nd Earl of Dartmouth stating his “inexpressible mortification” that the British military commander in the colonies, Sir Henry Clinton, had decided to by-pass Virginia and go to the “insignificant colony” of North Carolina to crush the rebellion there. Dunmore had already been kicked out of office by the Patriots and was aboard a British warship in Norfolk harbor. Sir Henry was accompanied by British General Charles Cornwallis and his army but upon reaching Cape Fear, North Carolina they decided to wait on the British navy commanded by Admiral Peter Parker that was just leaving Cork, Ireland. The British navy arrived in early May but Admiral Parker convinced Clinton and Cornwallis that the best tactic was to capture Charleston, South Carolina and blockade that important harbor. Upon arriving at Charleston, the Patriots knew they were coming and had the shore batteries aimed, armed and ready and delivered the mother of all ass-kickings to Admiral Parker’s navy. So Parker, Clinton and Cornwallis said “to hell with it” and sailed back to New York. By the way, the state of South Carolina is known as the “Palmetto State” because of this engagement. The shore batteries at Charleston were surrounded by palmetto tree logs. The palmetto tree trunk is very soft and the artillery shells from Parkers ships just buried up in the logs and did not explode with any intensity and the victory was ours, thus the mighty and sovereign Palmetto State.

Born today:

1838 German physicist Ernst Mach. He said “The Theory of Relativity is just unacceptable to me as the presence of atoms or any such dogma.” Ernst discovered the speed of sound which is named for him, but he obviously was a dumb-ass otherwise.

1859 Russian writer Sholom Aleichem. He said “No matter how bad things get, you must keep on living, even if it kills you.” Sholom, shut up.

1922 US writer Helen Gurley Brown. She said “Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere.” I know many of the latter and very few of the former.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Wednesday OYSTERS

                                            Al's Most Recent

Quote of the day:

“My neighbors love it when I play my piano; they throw rocks and break my windows so they can hear me better.”

Les Dawson

There is some question about why there was not an autopsy performed on SCOTUS justice Antonin Scalia. I don't know about the county where he died in west Texas but here in the piney woods of northwestern South Carolina it is this. If the coroner that makes the initial examination of the corpse decides the cause of death as being “normal” then there is no autopsy, but if the cause of death cannot be determined or is suspicious then there is an autopsy.

We often hear the phrase “get the hell out of Dodge”. That phrase began back in the 1880's when Wild Bill Hickok was the sheriff of Dodge City, Kansas and vicinity. Bill was ruthless and cut no one any slack. If he said “come with me” you had better start trotting or risk getting you brains knocked out or worse. If you found out that Bill was coming after you, you either surrendered immediately or “got the hell out of Dodge”. There was one incident where Bill was called to a disturbance at a bar by a crowd of Texas cattle drovers that had just arrived after three months on the range and they were obviously hammered. Bill came in and told them the party was over and it was time to go to bed. The trail boss took one step forward and Bill capped him with one shot to the forehead. The best thing for the trail boss to have done was to....you know.

This Date in History February 17

1865 On this date United States General William T. Sherman and his army of 60,000, in his continuing campaign against innocent and defenseless civilians, entered the state capitol of South Carolina after an orgy of rape and destruction. Two days before CSA General Wade Hampton III had pulled out of Columbia knowing that if he stayed and fought his small cavalry unit would be swarmed under and annihilated. Sherman's army took great pleasure and were very meticulous in their destruction of this city because they felt that it was South Carolina that was first to secede and provided the impetus for all the others. This method of “burnt turf” warfare was advocated by both General Ulysses Grant and President Lincoln. Y'all will need to remember that Abraham Lincoln issued a “call to arms to preserve the union” after the secession began. The US army had its ass handed to it by the Confederates in the first few battles of the Civil War and then the northerners pressed Lincoln to allow the Southerners to form their own country so as to stop the slaughter. Lincoln then saw that patriotism was not going to get the job done so he switched horses and said the war was about freeing the slaves which changes the impetus from patriotism to a matter of conscience. Now when the US Army has a chance at barbarism with impunity they say they are punishing those that led the secession. That was baloney; they are back on the other horse again. They were just doing rape and pillage because they could get away with it, politics not withstanding. But mankind’s history is full of similar events from the wars between the Mesopotamian city-states, Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic, Tutsis vs Hutus not to mention what happened in Darfur. Mankind’s history is full of atrocities against the innocents and it appears to me that there is no end in sight.

1995 On this day the ferry Neptune departed Jeremie for Port-au-Prince, Haiti. This boat was only 150 feet long with three decks and was carrying 1,200 people and farm animals. Normally the trip takes 12 hours. The bad thing was that this boat was licensed for only 650 people, had no life rafts, no life preservers and no emergency radio. About half way to Port-au-Prince a storm arose and the bottom deck began to become awash because of all the extra weight. The passengers, animals in tow, fled to the top deck. Y’all can guess what happened next. Most of the passengers got on one side and the boat capsized. Haiti has no Navy or Coast Guard so those people are out there on their own paddling around and hanging on to the boat. Finally the United States sent a Coast Guard cutter and they rescued about 350 people. The rest were lost...what a nightmare.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Tuesday OYSTERS

Al's Most Recent

Quote of the day:

“By the time my girlfriend Hilda was eighteen she had sown enough wild oats to make a grain deal with Russia.”

                                             Phyllis Diller

Once again I read a sad story. A man was telling a very energetic and driven person to go slow, be low key so there is no pressure, live longer. Is that what we are here for to see how long we can live? It damn sure is not why I am here. A low key life will not guarantee a longer life either and all they will have left is memories of nothing. Life is not a bowl of whipped cream, it is a fiery adventure to be remembered. Years ago my father called me over knowing he was dying. He said that right after he and my mother retired they wanted to go on a trip to Hawaii but decided to not spend the money. Then he said “It is too late now, we are too old. Don't let this happen to you.” I want to sample every nuance of life I can...take chances...live a challenging and thrilling life. I am at a point that most of that is beyond my pocketbook and physical abilities but I have an ocean of memories that I would not trade to anyone. I was no Crocodile Dundee but I was not a bump on a log either. I feel sorry for those out there that all they have is memories of their job. Don't get me wrong, time with my family is very important and very memorable especially adventures with my girls, but accepting and overcoming challenges is the secret ingredient that makes you who and what you are.

For the first time in history a few years ago the state dog of South Carolina represented a breed in the prestigious Westminster Dog Show. The breed is the Boykin Spaniel. This particular breed does not have a long history.

Here is the story:

About 1900 a man named John Whitaker came out of church in Spartanburg, SC and there was a stray dog roaming the grounds. It looked like a Cocker but it was a bit larger and a solid dark liver color. He took the dog home as a pet. Whitaker saw some traits in the dog that would be advantageous to a hunter and sent the dog to his hunting partner who was also a dog breeder. His partner lived in the small town near Camden, SC. The man’s name was “Whit” Boykin. Boykin also recognized the built-in skills of the little dog and began a breeding program to take advantage of them. This little male stray dog began a new breed that is recognized today by hunters and dog fanciers everywhere. Boykin bred him with Chesapeake Bay retrievers and water spaniels until the right mix of speed, stamina and savvy was achieved. The final product is about 35-40 pounds for a male and slightly smaller for a female but all are bundles of irrepressible energy and enthusiasm when taken afield. They are superb on a dove field as well as a duck blind. When I lived in Taylors, SC many years ago my neighbor owned a female Boykin. I went with him once when he took Curlie out onto an open field to let her “stretch her legs”. When she got out of the car she was urinating in anticipation but held close to the owner until he said “Go”. Off she went in a zigzag pattern very low to the ground running at a blistering pace. Finally she slowed down and began a search running at a gait like a cheetah just before they break into a full run. Her back was low to the ground but it did not move up and down, she moved in a straight, rhythmic pattern…it was poetry in motion. It was a beautiful sight that I will never forget.

Here is a story about greed and pride:

 Back in the 1980's there was a Canadian scientist named Gerald Bull. Bull was an astrophysicist but his long suit was designing artillery. He designed an artillery piece that could fire a shell, even a nuclear tipped one, over 500 miles. I know it sounds improbable but Bull took his drawings to Canada, US, England, France and a couple of more countries who all agreed that the design was plausible but they had no use for it since the barrel would have to be about 150 feet long. But he finally found a buyer...Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Saddam was very interested knowing he would be able to hold the entire middle east hostage including Israel. Bull was questioned as to why he would want to put a weapon like that in the hands of a dictator like Saddam. He said that all the other countries had their chance, to hell with them. While he was supervising the installation of the 500 mile range cannon he was designing another cannon that could put something in orbit. All of this came to the attention of Iran, Jordan, Syria and especially Israel. They all knew that if Bull and Saddam were allowed to continued the entire world would be held hostage so something had to be done. It was decided that the Israeli secret police known as Mossad would get the assignment. Bull had a second home in Belgium and that is where he was spending the majority of the time while not in Iraq. They finally caught Bull in the hallway of his house in Belgium and capped him with two shots to the temple with a .22 long rifle target pistol and a silencer. Bull kept all of his drawings secret so no one else knew what he knew about artillery and Israel's problem with him was over. Why a .22 and not a 9mm you ask. It is the noise that might attract attention. Mossad has used a small .22 revolver using .22 short cartridges with half the powder removed. That makes very little noise and is very effective in an ear, eye or up the nostril. By the way, the cannon that was under construction in Iraq was abandoned...no one had the drawings nor the formula for the propellant.

             This Date in History February 16

1862 US General U.S. Grant completed a brilliant campaign in the western theater with the capture of Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River in Tennessee. Just 10 days before he had captured Fort Henry on the Tennessee River which severely damaged the Confederate supply routes. The Confederate troops at Fort Donelson were led by General Gideon Pillow. Fort Donelson was well defended by seasoned troops. Grant chose to attack from two directions and was initially successful but General Pillow ordered a counter-attack and drove the US army back making an escape possible, but Pillow got greedy. He thought he would win and continued the attack rather than ordering an escape. Included in those that chose to escape were CSA General Nathan Bedford Forrest and 500 cavalrymen that proved to be a thorn in the side of the Union army for the entire war. Eventually Grant was able to flank Pillows troops and they were forced to surrender. When Pillow asked Grant for surrender terms the answer was “nothing but total and unconditional surrender will be accepted”. Grants troops joked around saying that the U.S. in Grant’s name meant “Unconditional Surrender”.

1803 The fledgling United States merchant fleet had been under attack by pirates from North Africa while the ships were in the Mediterranean Sea. President Thomas Jefferson got fed up and sent our Navy there to counteract the pirates. One of the US warships, the Philadelphia ran aground near Tripoli and was captured. The US Navy felt that they had to prevent the pirates from adding to their fleet with a ship of this caliber. On this date, Lieutenant Stephan Decatur and 73 sailors and Marines sailed into Tripoli harbor disguised as Maltese fishermen. They boarded the Philadelphia, killed the crew and set fire to the ship and burned that puppy down to the waterline. Decatur and his crew escaped with no casualties. Decatur became an icon in the history of the United States Navy. There are several towns in several states named for him.

              Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Monday OYSTERS

                                   Al's Most Recent

Quote of the day:

“The Jews invented guilt but the Irish turned it into an art form.”

                                      Walter Matthau

A while back the South Carolina branch of the NAACP held a rally on the north lawn of the state capitol grounds in Columbia. There is a life size statue there. The leaders of said rally chose to build a blind around this statue where it could not be seen by the crowd that was going to assemble for a variety of speeches. After all was said and done and the blind removed, the press discovered that they had built a blind around a statue of George Washington. As you might suspect, the press jumped all over that and asked the rally leaders about it. The leaders lamely replied that they did not want to “offend” anyone. Who in hell would be offended by a likeness of the Father of our Nation? This great man gave a huge chunk of his life and health to help gain independence for this gigantic experiment in freedom that includes you and me. The only reasonable conclusion I can come to is that the rally organizers did not know who George Washington was. But that is not logical because if they did not know who he was they would not care if anyone saw him. Or they did indeed know who he was and did not want to “offend” others by acknowledging the contribution this man had made to the development of this nation. In any event, this disrespect of one of the most dedicated Patriots this nation has ever known by the South Carolina NAACP shows a lack of class and character. It sure changes my attitude about this organization. Patriotism and love of country is light years more important than political speeches. 

This Date in History February 15

1776 On this date the Royal Governor of Canada from his headquarters in Halifax has sent a letter to the British authorities in London that a traitorous bunch in Cumberland, Nova Scotia has sent an invitation to Patriot General George Washington inviting him to attack Nova Scotia and they would join in. The letter said that the people of Nova Scotia were fed up with being under the heel of King George III also. What really had them pissed off was that England was using Canada and Nova Scotia in particular as a dumping ground for a trash pile of humanity that England had no other place to put them. When the jails in England, Scotland and Ireland became full, they would send the overflow into exile in Nova Scotia. Not only that, any slaves that ran away from their owners and sought asylum with the British, they would send them to Nova Scotia. Also there were a considerable number of blacks that fought with the British as a member of the army and the Loyalists (Those Americans that stayed loyal to the King) that knew they had to get the hell out of Dodge when the Patriots prevailed. All of these people went to Nova Scotia. The blacks that fought with the British had a choice of a piece of land in Nova Scotia or receive free passage back to Africa. Many of these went to Africa and were instrumental in the establishment of Freetown, Liberia, a new nation. Anyway, it appeared that the locals in Nova Scotia were fed the hell up with all of the aliens and were looking to form their own nation like the United States and that is why they contacted Washington. George had his hands full with the British army here in the United States and could not pursue the invitation. But it just goes to show you that the dumping of aliens causes extreme tensions with the natives. Does that sound familiar?

1835 Alexander Stewart Webb was born in New York City. His Grandfather fought at Bunker Hill for the Patriots and his father was US minister to Brazil during the Civil War. Alexander attended West Point and graduated in 1855 13^th in a class of 43. He taught mathematics at West Point and Florida before the outbreak of the Civil War. After the outbreak of the war he was sent to Fort Pickens, Florida. He did not stay long before he was called back to Washington and given command of an artillery battalion protecting the capitol. Webb’s first taste of combat came at the Second Battle of Manassas where he and his troops tasted defeat for the first time. The next major engagement he was in was the last day of the Battle of the Seven Days, the infamous encounter at Malvern Hill. In this battle Webb and his troops were victorious against the Confederates. They won this particular skirmish at Malvern Hill but the victory of the Battle of Seven Days went to Robert E. Lee but it was accredited to Webb that his artillery skills prevented the total annihilation of the US army by Confederate artillery. In spite of his obvious military skills he was passed over for promotion several times because of his association with General George B. McClellan who was fired by President Lincoln and that left Webb in limbo as a Colonel. Even some of his students at West Point became a General before him. He was finally promoted to Brigadier General and had command of a brigade in the center of the Union lines at Gettysburg during Pickett’s Charge. At the zenith of the charge the 5^th and 7^th North Carolina crashed through the Union lines and were close to opening a breach that would have allowed the rest of the 13,000 screaming Confederates to pass through to the rear of the Union lines where General J.E.B. Stuart and has cavalry awaited. Had these two forces been allowed to join up the US army would have been destroyed and perhaps a different history of these United States would have been written. But when the battle at the front line reached a critical point, General Webb personally led his brigade in a ferocious counter-attack and blunted the Confederate advance and drove them back across the line of attack. For this action, Alexander Stewart Webb was awarded the Medal of Honor. He wasn’t done yet. He was at the savage battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse and received a terrible head wound. I took him eight months to recover. When he came back to duty he was made an aide to US General George Meade and eventually went back to West Point as an instructor. He was made president of City College of New York and he died in Riverdale New York in 1911. There is a statue of General Webb at the spot where his brigade was gathered during Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg (been there).

1933 The President of the United States Franklin Roosevelt and the Mayor of Chicago Anton Cermak are walking together during a visit to Miami. All of a sudden a man named Giuseppe Zangara ran up and opened fire at Roosevelt but misses him and kills Mayor Cermak. Zangara is brought to trial on March 2, convicted and sentenced to death. 18 days later Zangara met his maker medium rare after an encounter with “Old Sparky”. Keep this in mind when thinking of monster serial killers like Ted Bundy and Danny Rolling who spent 13 and 14 years and longer in prison before being executed. What’s up with that? We had the same Constitution then as we do now.

Born today:

1564 Astrophysicist Galileo. He said “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who had endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forego its use.” This came as a result of a squabble with the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church wanted Galileo to teach want the Pope said instead of what he had discovered. The Catholic church prevailed under the threat of torture. I am going to repeat that. The Catholic church prevailed under the threat of torture.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Friday OYSTERS

                                       Al's Most Recent

Quote of the day:

“Men travel the Earth seeking what they need and eventually return home to find it…their families.”

                                             George Moore

After my career as an air traffic controller I went back to school and went into the engineering business, mostly chemical, plastics and fibers piping design including manual drawings, 2D and 3D computer modeling. This included going “in the field” and supervising the assembly and installation of piping that we had designed. I was working in a plant site near Theodore, Al. when a peculiar thing happened. I was about 30 feet above ground and walking around in a pipe rack dropping a plumb bob to people below to determine places to add “branches” into existing piping. I was working for the Fluor/Greenville, SC office at the time. I heard someone coming toward me in the pipe rack. I eventually recognized him as the head of the Fluor-Greenville office. When he got close enough I asked him what the hell was he doing here. He just said that he wanted to see how it was “in the field”. How many people do you know with that much power and status that would climb around in huge chemical plant construction site just to see how his troops worked? I was impressed.

Here is one more wild animal tale.

There is a large demand for “white” tigers. This is a mutation of the familiar orange, black and white Bengal tiger that we are all familiar with. To ensure that white tiger cubs are produced there is very close inbreeding (father-daughter...brother-sister, etc.). The down side is these tiger are very unpredictable. On a farm here in the US that raises these particular tigers there was a 23 year old female worker. She was present at the birth of a litter of white tiger cubs and took a female aside and hand raised it. When it was born it was about the size of a house kitten. A year later it weighed about 150 pounds not full grown. One day she went into the tiger's cage to clean it. She bent over to pick something off the floor with her back to the tiger. The tiger jumped on her back, bit her in the back of the neck killing her instantly. The tiger also fed on her corpse. Not only that, when workers tried to get the corpse the tiger would have none of it, it “protected its kill” just like it would in the wild. They finally shot the tiger and retrieved the corpse. I wondered why they just didn't dart the tiger with a tranquilizer but the law in that state was that once an animal killed a human, it had to be destroyed as a danger to others. An animal behavior expert said that no tiger will attack from the front and once it saw this woman's back and looked like it was on four legs (bent over) it reverted back to its thousands of years old genetics of attacking its four legged prey from the rear...in spite of the fact that this woman was the only “relative” she had ever known. God works in mysterious ways.

This Date in History February 12

1789 On this date the Patriot General Ethan Allen died of a stroke on the banks of the Winooski River in Vermont at the age of 56. In spite of the ongoing struggle between Vermont and New York, Allen was a superb military leader for the fledgling United States. The problem was that New York felt that the lands of Vermont were part of New York and the New Yorkers had no problem selling lands in Vermont and fought against admitting Vermont to join the Union as a separate state. Ethan Allen was even arrested for treason because he got fed up with being refused admission to the Union; he approached England to allow Vermont to be part of Canada. Vermont and New York eventually settled their differences and Vermont was admitted. In the meantime Allen teamed up with US General Benedict Arnold and they attacked the British at Montreal. Allen was captured by the British and was kept prisoner for 3 years. After his release he formed a unit called the Green Mountain Boys and joined up again with Benedict Arnold and captured the British bastion of Fort Ticonderoga. It was from this fort that the Patriot General Henry Knox brought the captured cannon to Boston and then to the peak of Dorchester Heights which drove the British out of Boston.

1805 The Lewis and Clark expedition was wintering with the Mandan Indians near present day Bismarck, North Dakota. There they met a French/Canadian fur trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau. This man had just bought two Indian women from the Hidatsa tribe that was famous for kidnapping and selling women. One of the women was kidnapped from the Shoshone tribe near the Montana/Idaho border. Her name was Sacagawea. Lewis and Clark knew they would need horses to cross the Continental divide and knew that their best bet was to buy them from the Shoshone. Lewis and Clark hired Charbonneau as a guide if he would bring Sacajawea with him to which he agreed. On this date Sacajawea went into labor and Clark acted as a midwife assisting her as best he could. Sacagawea was having a tough time but Clark was told that a brew made from powdered rattlesnake rattle would induce birth. Clark administered this to Sacajawea and two hours later she delivered a son named they Jean Baptiste Charbonneau into this world. Clark became very attached to this baby and nicknamed him Pompey, or Pomp and Clark paid for his education. Pomp died in 1866.

Born today:

1809 US President Abraham Lincoln. After receiving a message from Union General Joseph Hooker who signed the message “Headquarters in the saddle” Lincoln said “The trouble with Hooker is that he has his headquarters where his hindquarters ought to be.” Hooker had just been routed by CSA Generals R.E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville, Virginia in spite of the fact that Hooker had the Confederates outnumbered more than two to one. Before the battle Hooker had said “Now we have Lee where he will have to come out and fight or ingloriously run.” Lee and Jackson did neither; it was Hooker and Yankees that “ingloriously ran”. It cost Hooker his command.

Quotable quotes:

“Men marry because they are tired, women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.”

                                                Oscar Wilde

“It seems that we must hire lobbyists to protect us from the people we just elected.”

                                                 Mark Twain

“Marriage is the price men pay for sex. Sex is the price women pay for marriage”

                                                  Oscar Wilde

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Thursday OYSTERS

                                     Al's Most Recent

Quote of the day:

“Mister Speaker, I withdraw my statement that half of the cabinet are asses. Half of the cabinet are not asses.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Here is a message from a person that was in touch with his soul. I think it is the best indictment ever written of what we are today. Some of you may have seen this before, here it is again.

“The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space.

We've done larger things, but not better things. We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice.

We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less.

We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes.

These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill.

It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight or to just hit delete.

Remember, spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember to give a warm hug to the one next to you because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.

Remember to say, "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.”

My information said the author was George Carlin but there are those that think otherwise. The author is not important, the message is.

       This Date in History  February 11

1861 On this date the recently elected President of the United States Abraham Lincoln left Springfield, Illinois headed for Washington. He is traveling by train that was packed with the family’s household goods that Lincoln packed himself. As expected, after Lincoln’s election seven southern states seceded from the Union and Lincoln knew full well that a civil war was on the near horizon. His parting words to the people of Springfield were “Here I have lived for a quarter of a century and have passed from a young man to an old man. My children have been born here and I have buried one here. Now I must leave not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater that that which rested on Washington. Without Divine assistance I cannot succeed, but with that assistance I cannot fail. To his care I am commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me. I bid you all an affectionate farewell”. It was reported that his chest heaved with emotion after completing this speech. He did indeed return to Springfield by train.

1960 Some of y'all may not know this but the first host of The Tonight Show was comedian/musician Steve Allen. After Steve retired the job of host fell to a fruitcake named Jack Paar. Paar was a funny guy but wore his emotions on his sleeve. He would often break into tears over the slightest thing and he often allowed his personal opinions on political matters to absorb him. When Fidel Castro overthrew Batista and his corrupt regime Parr praised Castro and called him a world hero. But when the Bay of Pigs fiasco occurred, he tried to engineer a swap of tractors for those captured by Castro. On this date Parr walked off the stage in angry tears and stayed away for a month. What happened was the show was taped and the NBC censors would snip and cut stuff from Paar’s monologue that they did not like. Finally Paar got fed up and when the censors cut a joke about a “water closet” (toilet) as being in bad taste he hit the roof.

1778 On this date French playwright Voltaire returned to Paris after a 28 year exile. Voltaire was a rapier witted writer of outstanding talent. When he was young his father sent him to school to study law but Voltaire wanted to be a playwright. His first play was named La Henriade. The play was a farce about politicians and religion so biting that he was arrested and spent a year in the Bastille (prison). In 1734 he delivered Letters Philosophique and as you might suspect it was attacking the politicos and religion and the heat came so intense for him that he had to flee to England. In 1756 he was invited to Berlin as the guest of King Frederick II of Prussia. After this he moved to Switzerland where he delivered his most famous work in Candide. After only three months back in his beloved Paris, he died leaving a legacy of free thought that lives to this day.

           Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow